The baby dragon looks a little like a water bug.  Poor little baby dragon, he doesn’t know who  he is, like some poor ugly duckling.  This water bug shoots around, wondering who he is and what he’s supposed to do with his life, just like most of us.  This little baby dragon, poor water bug, doesn’t feel like a fish, or a sea-horse or even a plant.  This baby dragon sees a lot of plants, too, but he’s not one of them either.

Then one day this baby dragon, disguised as a water bug, alights on an underwater stalk growing from the turbulent soil beneath the waters.  This baby dragon feels moved in his guts to climb this stalk.  Up the little green stem he climbs in spite of fish and sea horses asking where he’s going and why, even when his younger dragon brothers and sisters beg him not to go, this little mistaken bug goes ahead with what he feels compelled to do and climbs.

When sunlight breaks on his face, little sprouts open on his iridescent shoulders.  He never noticed how iridescent his own skin is, never even dreamed he’d have wings to match.  But there they are, breaking out of his own skin.  With no instruction, only the same inner knowledge he had that drove him to climb to the surface, his wings flutter and the baby dragon takes flight.

Dragonflies, some believe, were the majestic dragons of lore and legend.  How, one might ask, did these great winged fire-breathing creatures become little iridescent dragonflies?

Because they could.

People began populating the Earth.  Dragons, knowing, wise and savvy in love (remember the mommy and daddy dragon flying hand in hand) realized humans couldn’t understand their race, but would be terrified of the image they presented.  So the great council of mommy dragons found a wise seer and witch to work her magic for them.

Dragons the world over begged to be made small and symbolic, so people would slowly begin to realize what it means to be a dragon.  Dragons reached beyond even this desire, and begged to be made into talismans of hope.

“Make us fierce and small.”  Dragons begged.  “Make it so people aspire to be dragons, too.  But let them want to be small and glorious, not huge and magnificent.  There is already too much of that.  Let us be a template for people’s hope.”

The witch turned the dragons’ plea over to the gods, who went to the dragons themselves.  The dragons all agree, pleading with the gods to answer their prayers.

And so the great dragons became small in the answer of one great prayer.  Yet the beginning of their life is no different from when they were huge beasts.

They begin in the water.  They swim and exist and one day climb up out of the mire of their life to feel the growth of their wings.  Then they fly.

Oh, to be a dragon.

We are no different, friends.  We are all dragons.  We are born of love and burst forth from water.  The difference is that we get to choose whether we climb the stalk of our great calling to become a Dragon, or if we look at it and think, No, I’ll remain a water bug.

That’s the only difference between humans and dragons.  They are born with genetic coding that designs them to climb the stalk.  Humans have free will.

As we enter the Chinese year of the Dragon, think of stalks to greatness you’ve been afraid to climb.  Then, without remorse or regret, see your next opportunity for growth and begin climbing there.

This is a powerful year, one of transformation and self-possession.  There is no mystical law that says you have to climb to the surface of the water and let the sun shine on your wings, but there’s no rule forcing you to stay beneath the surface, either.

The Chinese New year is an opportunity to re-evaluate resolutions and make new ones.

Have only one desire this year – become a Dragon.

Be wise.

Grow.

Be open to total transformation.

There is somewhat of an up-rising in the yoga community that you may have heard about whether you stay up on this sort of thing or not.  Let me just say my dad called to ask, “Hey honey, did you know you could break your ass practicing yoga?  You ain’t doing that sort of yoga, are you?”

Whaaaa???  If my dad knows about it, some of you might have heard this, too.

This phone call on my way home from a yoga class.  When I get home there are two facebook links to the article that made national news when my dad happened to be posted in front of the television.  I read the entire five pages and close my computer because I want to respond on my wee little blog here but I didn’t feel all the information had come in yet.  And there was much information to come in on the topic.

What is the topic?

Well, Reader, is seems that yoga can kill you.  Or can cause you to be killed.  True story.  I’ll provide a link to the New york Times article at the conclusion of this post.  Don’t you worry.

My last post discussed Iyengar, the guy who has been teaching and practicing yoga for seventy years.  Yeah, you read correctly, he’s 91 years old, he’s really been doing it that long.  I’ve never met him, but I bet he’s a charmer even if he does hit students in the chest to get them to open energy centers and vortexes and stuff.  Iyengar is now not only a 91-year-old yoga teacher, he’s an institution with Iyengar certified instructors known for their speciality in modifications and props to make yoga accessible to people of all physical constitutions.  To make yoga safe for everyone.

The Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States responded to the New York Times article and when I saw it this morning I decided it was time to say my own little piece.  And it has very little to do with yoga, but don’t worry your head none, I’ll post Iyengar’s statement letter link at the conclusion of this post as well.

A student was discussing the how yoga can break your ass article before class last week.  I’ve seen two responses from students; they are suddenly scared of yoga or they righteously defend it.  This guy is in the latter group with reasonable statements such as, “Any physical activity has some sort of risk…” and  “Obviously if you push poses beyond your limits then you can get hurt…”

Yes.

Now, Reader, anyone who has known me for five seconds knows I’m not a live on the edge let’s go skydiving kind of girl (I have been known to say that getting me to jump out of an airplane wouldn’t be hard, it would be getting me on one that would be a miracle) so it’s safe to say I’m not going to gravitate to full contact sports.  There was that time when I fought grown men for sport and no pay, but I was secretly trying to delve into the philosophical world of Bruce Lee and got side tracked with all the sparring accessories.

Football is dangerous, so is hockey and I would imagine if you didn’t come up for air a swim team could cost you your life, too.  We all know skiing could kill you, poor Sonny Bono, and don’t get me started on the dangers of rock climbing and bird watching (those pigeons are deadly).  I’ll concede to yoga being on the low-end of the dangerous sport spectrum because I have been known to fall off my mat that doesn’t happen to move, I just fall.  I fell on my head last week, not hard and there were plenty of blankets.  I have fall training, I know how to land anyway.  Besides, I know falling on your head can’t kill you, my sister fell on her head when she was a baby and I know how hard because I’m the one who dropped her.  At least no one else was responsible for my topple last week.

Do you know what’s really dangerous, Reader?

Thinking.

Loving.

Devoting yourself to something.

Self-possession.

Yoga offers all of this, slowly and over time.  You don’t go buy a hundred-dollar sticky mat and a ridiculous set of “yoga paws” to better help you stick to your already sticky yoga mat and then start radical thinking, loving and devotion.  Nay nay, my friend.  But it happens.

Bending and shaping your body is only the beginning of yoga.  And for some people it begins and ends there.  They have a whole life of practice and feel good in their bodies (self-possession is an eventual reality of regular yoga practice whether you’re in it to win it or not) and find peace on their mat whether it cost a hundred and ninety-five dollars or they picked it up at a garage sale for fifty cents.  But sometimes the other parts of yoga sneak up on you and that’s when it gets dangerous.

That’s when it gets fun.

The first line in the Iyengar response letter is, If yoga hurts, it is not yoga. A student’s overreaching ego, a teacher’s ignorance –many causes may lead to injury while doing yoga, but yoga itself cannot be blamed.

This is where thinking is critical, Reader, for instance, if your leg hurts when you do that, you could think one of two things; either “let me do that harder and see if it still hurts” or “maybe I ought not do that”.  Thinking is only dangerous, it seems, when you do not do it.

I guess the same thing can be said for love, devotion and self-possession.  They’re only dangerous when one does not practice it.  I think the same can be said for yoga.  The English translation for Yoga is union.  The opposite of union is separation.  Being separate from yourself, disconnected from your mind, heart and others is when things get dangerous.

Whether we meet on mats beside each other, you land in one of my classes or we’re dear friends who sit around solving the problems of the world and you don’t practice yoga postures at all, you’re still a yogi in my eyes.  So thank you for living on the edge with me.

Now, as you leave the class please remove your safety harness, collect your packages and take small children firmly by the hand as you exit to the right.  Oh, and Namaste.

The New York Times Article – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?pagewanted=all

The Iyengar National Association of the United States http://iynaus.org/news/iynaus-response

He teaches yoga and, I have heard it said, Iyengar practices about four hours a day.  Apparently, he also smacks students to get them to open energy centers and vortexes, too, but I’ve not experienced this firsthand so I cannot say for sure.  Of course, I have been known to say, “That son of a bitch would hit me one time, one time…”  as I wag my index finger in the air.

Back to this guy, Iyengar.

First, let me digress, because that’s one of my favorite things to do and I know that’s what all ya’ll come here for, anyway.

Having read my last post about Dr. Kausthub Desikachar http://icyexhale.com/2012/01/02/the-moon-is-always-male/  you know I got to sit in a three-day lecture with him and then pick his brain for my future writing career.  The Dr. is a yoga therapist and a generational yoga teacher.  He’s not the first yogi-type in his family like yours truly.  They are an old family, like yoga mobsters, and I love him.  He is large, warm and someone I could hug forever.  So what I’m about to say is nothing personal.

His job is yoga therapies.  I had the opportunity to have a “private” with him in front of the class, which would have cut the cost down by like ninety percent.  But I have had acupuncture and I know what can be done with simple pulse diagnosis and looking at my tongue.  I can hear it now, “Tell me, Madam, why is it you can’t sleep without a woobie, have chronic anxiety and drink wine on every other Tuesday?  It seems like you have smoked one million and forty-seven cigarettes in your lifetime.  Is this true?”  Oh, no, you’re not getting me with that one.

So I respectfully decline to have my yoga therapy session in front of peers and colleagues, friends and future frenemies alike, because I don’t have the heart to be splayed open like fresh caught squirrel on a taxidermist’s table.  I believe in what he does that much.

In a completely un-related topic; he doesn’t care for yoga butts at all.

You know what I mean.

Let’s face it; people who practice yoga with any sort of vigor over a period of time develop this apple like appendage hovering just over their upper thighs.  Yoga pants manufacturers prey on these asses, crafting over-priced pants to further accentuate the derriere many warrior poses will develop.  Yoga will give you a nice ass, nice abs and carved arms if you let it.  But that’s not all yoga can do.

This is where the good Dr. and I agree.

In his world, the yoga butt phenomenon is almost an insult, my words not his.  In fact, this isn’t based on too much he said during his visit, it all comes from my own crisis of faith that I entered into, unfortunately, while he was in town.  He arrives the week before Christmas, which means just in time for my annual falling apart during the after Christmas hub-bub.  I get depressed in January.  I can’t help it.

Yoga is like medicine.  There are plastic surgeons and there are cardiologists.  There are breast augmentors and there are emergency room physicians.  Dr. Kausthub considers himself (I am assuming) to  be the latter of the two groups and he is not mistaken (if this is the case).

I don’t know what an Iyengar is at the time, but I know that when I began practicing yoga many years ago, “Iyengar” was a name I heard often, though it took me a while to even figure out it was really a name for a person.

The history is that Iyengar was Krishnamacharya’s student before Iyengar moved too far away to travel for sessions.  So Iyengar, sickly and desperate to cure himself as a young man, carried on his training.  A free subscription to Icy Exhale for anyone who can tell me who said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

I know how this goes.

I am an aspiring Shaolin Kung Fu student.  I have achieved some rank and have a title “Pre-Disciple” which means I can teach, have run of the school, have taken top scores in competition and perform in demonstrations.

We are practicing the bo staff form in the parking lot outside the school in Mobile.  My teacher, Shifu Liu of old China, is standing within a hairs breadth of me.  I ask, “Hey, sir, is there such a thing as a horse form?”

I ask because I have always had this thing about horses.  I worked at a stable when I was a child, not as child labor but I just took lessons and they couldn’t get rid of me.  I washed horses, fed them, walked them and rubbed the fragrance of saddle oil all over my clothes so I could take it home with me.

I am also taken with Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, and think what an inspiring form The Shaolin Stallion would be, if there was such a thing.

My Shifu answers, “Nah!” and walks away.

And in my guts and mind a great serpent of independence rises up and says, “Then I’ll make one up on my own.”  Which I did times two; I went home and wrote up a draft for a psycho-spiritual dissertation on the advantages of being the underdog and then I made up a kung fu horse form with my kung fu education.

Nothing ever came of it.

However, when Iyengar decided, for all intents and purposes, to make his own horse form, he really sort of kicked off a yoga revolution.  Everyone in the west who practices yoga practices something inspired by this guy.  And his former teacher.

So yoga butts don’t fix deeply imbedded traumas or long rooted angst?

When I started practicing yoga, I had the ass of a kung fu athlete.  I didn’t need any help in that department.  But there was something about my teachers instructing, “Inhale and bring your right foot to the front of your mat, exhale bring your left foot to the front of your mat, fold over your legs.  Inhale, sweep your arms out and up allowing your hands to meet over your head.  Bring your prayer to heart’s center…”

They breathe for me without taking my breath away.  Move my foot here, there, align my ankle beneath my knee, open my hips and arms and welcome to warrior two.  These cues are not only sculpting a firm body.  In joining with a flow of yoga students and practitioners that goes back as far as yoga is willing to go, stretching as far into the future as we need to take it, there is union in the moment we exhale, really only bringing us into communion with our very own selves.

Something happened to me on the inside in flow classes.  I opened to the possibilities of yoga therapies because of flow classes and my healthy respect for Chinese medicine.  But I didn’t get into this yoga thing to be a doctor, I got into this to offer the very things that saved my life.

Breath.

That small space on the floor my sticky mat takes up that is all mine, on which I can wallow, stretch, burn and melt.

Friends I’ve met along the way.

God.  Yup, I said it.

And I believe that one day I’ll meet my highest and best self, because we all know her ass is sitting right here with me, but I’m still en process of wallowing.  That, too, is another post.

Dr. Desikachar said, in so many words, that yoga is supposed to make you feel better.  If it doesn’t help you, you’re not doing yoga.  If it helps you, it’s yoga.  Doug Keller said the same thing, and so did Swami Jaya Devi.  To hear something and then experience it are two different matters.

If a sculpted ass is a by-product of power vinyasa, the shit I’ve been doing for almost ten years, then god help me but I like it.  And if brief moments of stillness in this rocket fire mind of mine is a by-product of power vinyasa, which is really still only yoga, then whatever in the hell it is I’ve been doing is yoga, because I’m a better person both physically and phycho-spiritually for it.

Iyengar inspired instructors are the ones who brought me to where I am.  Their alignment principals have kept me safe, the directives have taught me how to work with and heal a sore back, mis-aligned bones and out of whack muscles.  I cannot argue with these concepts, I cannot besmirch the fork in the road that brought Iyengar into his line of work.

I also cannot disagree with the therapies that Dr. Desikachar prescribes, because they work as well as the Chinese acupuncture that saved my emotional and psychic life many years ago.  He is that for real, he may as well have put a whole bunch of needles in our skin and turned out the lights for three days.  But I cannot reconcile in myself that what I have been doing for almost a decade is diminished because, also, it’s sort of scripted and a punchline and makes my butt look ever so taught.

Because yoga is a punchline (I know you’ve seen the S*it Yogis Say video; it’s worse than Jenna Marbles) and sometimes it might seem scripted, especially if I’m teaching and feeling particularly defeated like I do every January, and yeah, my butt is ever so taught.  But to quote someone ever so wise and inspired, that shit works.  It doesn’t matter if you approach via yoga therapies, as about half my instructors have, or through Iyengar, which is most familiar to me.  It works, and no matter who we fall under and decide to learn from, eventually we’re going to have to make our own form.

Everything we learn is only a seed for our own greatness, and to water those little seeds sometimes we just need to go with the flow.

That’s an emphatic statement and one I came up with all on my own.  I’ve had a lot of inspiration, though, and I’m gonna tell you about it because that’s what I’m here for.

The week before Christmas, Dragonfly Yoga Studies was graced with the presence of one hell of a teacher; Dr. Kausthub Desikachar, son of the famed TKV Desikachar and the grandson of Krishnamacharya, the father of modern yoga.  He descends on Fort Walton Beach on December 19th.  When he enters the studio on the twentieth of December, the house is packed.

He makes his way to the front of a hushed crowd, his eyelashes are so long I am transfixed by their contrast against the aqua wall he’s standing in front of.  He talks with his hands a lot.  His irreverence and humor make him ever more approachable as the days go by.  On the third day, though I have pages and pages of notes to take home and sleep with under my pillow (for how else can I possibly process this genius?) I strike gold.

I am scheduled to interview him on Friday after the three days of lecture.  I intend to cultivate questions to ask him so I can write an article.  As the days go by I am less and less nervous.  On two different occasions he says something completely unrelated to strings around my very own heart, but they get tugged just the same and my eyes water.  At another time, I am thrown into a laughing fit that temporarily halts the lecture.  On the third night, twenty of us go to dinner.  After three intense days of lecture, sitting and asking him a few questions doesn’t scare me.

What to do with the article when it’s finished, maybe that spooks me a little bit, but this year I have resolved (yes, more on New Year’s Resolutions next time) to take things one step at a time.  In fact, this is at the top of my list of resolutions.

On the third night, I strike gold not for the interview but for my little two-year old blog that I have poked, prodded, abandoned and reclaimed in its existence.  I know that I want to do something with this one thing he says, but it doesn’t come to me at first.

Here it is, and I know a whole hell of a bunch of New Agers, pagans, astrologers (I’m sorry Colleen), farmers, fortune tellers and general Western occultists who are gonna send me hate mail and I do not care.

The Moon is Always Male.

When that comes out of Kausthub’s mouth I almost drop my pen and fall into another hysterical fit.  But I don’t do that.  I write it down and then ask him about it in the interview on Friday.

I warned him that this is my “romantic” question.  He asked when my birthday is with a wink.  I’m a Libra, I can’t help it.  And it’s not “romantic” in the traditional sense, either.  I have to say his response was very reasonable, culturally speaking.  The moon is male because it relates with cultivating medicinal herbs, which are often harvested at night, thus overseen by the moon.  But it captured my imagination (my very romantic imagination).

The moon is the guardian of the sky, protective and watching in the night.  The moon, ever watchful, allows us to sleep under its cool and protective gaze.  The sun is Sri, feminine, warm and nourishing.  She feeds plants and humans with her light.

To be perfectly honest, the good doctor left it at that.  Neither of us could have possibly foreseen how I am about to misconstrue his teaching, but for the record, all of the following explicative statements and arguable sentiments are mine and do not reflect the beliefs of anyone to whom I have spoken regarding the following material.

Western occultists view the moon as female.  I have a book of poetry, in fact, entitled “The Moon is Always Female”.  Oh, how it changes the dynamic when the two are switched, though.  The moon, in the West, is receptive, reflective and mutable.  Typical woman.  The sun is strong, vibrant and sure of its radiance.  What we as women want men to be – possibly.

If, however, we embrace the sun as feminine, and women embrace a solar nature, think of the shift in consciousness this can bring.  What would happen if we choose to nourish instead of drift among cloudless climes and starry skies?  What if we embrace our warmth and aim that light, nourishment and warmth at each other first… as women?

Because the moon, that masculine moon, reflects the sun, he takes his cues from the sun, from woman.  However the sun shines, so the man will become.  What if no more mean girls eviscerate each other with gossip and trite bullshit?  Stop it with the fucking back biting and “Rock of Love” inspired histrionics and treat each other with respect.  Men, as I see it, treat women the way women treat each other and themselves (on a cultural level).  And there is so little self-respect in the media and the mainstream that it makes perfect sense that there remains this divide between the sexes.

In my small circle of the globe, my women and I treat each other well.  There are misunderstandings, arguments and cat fights on the regular, on a cultural basis and in my own home.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about a communal-consciousness in which women have grown accustomed to limited self-worth in a society in which we have chosen to be beholden to men because they are man.  Behind the scenes women are running around trying to figure out what in the hell is going on and why their relationships have so many misunderstandings.

The men are responding to us.  That’s the problem and the solution.

We do not allow men to be men because we are unwilling to be soft, nourishing, burning and vibrant women.  We contort and bend to all manner of media inspired plastic bullshit that we have bought with our minds.  We convince ourselves that to be in a relationship, to not be single, means to craft body and soul into a soulless friendless relic.

There is another culture, call it the red tent if you want to, in which women nourish and embrace each other, and I’m not quoting Sappho here, either.  The moment we quit vilifying the ex-girlfriend for transgressions of our new boyfriend, the second we stop believing the world revolves around dick and realize that cooling heavenly body man can and wants to be, not only will the nature of our romantic partnerships change, but our relationship with other women and ourselves will deepen and grow.

It’s all well and good when in the Bhagavad Gita the mind is likened to wild horses tethered to a chariot.  The chariot, of course, being the “us” that isn’t necessarily just the mind stuff, but the psycho-spiritual beings meant to live effervescent and lively existences above the prattling of “monkey mind”.  While wild, these horses control everything with their stomping hooves and bodies jockeying for lead position (those thoughts that are so insistent that you HAVE to attend to them even though they’re futile at best).  Those frothing beasts, albeit majestic, drive us crazy.

Ah, wild mind indeed.

Obviously, no one has written a spiritual text on the nature of the mind who also owned a three-month old kitten.

That’s the psychosis I’m dealing with here, people.

Iola Boylen, said three-month old kitten, is a savage.  I dare say terrorist.

In the early part of the evening she is cordial, playing nice with the Siamese Merryweather (still known as The Weather, given her stormy disposition since Iola came to live with us).  Iola will sashay around between ten at night and, say, two.  She’ll take a drink, have a snack, nap a bit.

Because she’s conserving energy for when I’m trying to go to sleep.

Iola Boylen, the target tabby, likes to play in the toilette.  I didn’t know this at first.  When she first put her wet paw on my face I ask, “Why did you play in the water bowl kitty?”  Ever have thoughts you wish you could flush but end up written all over your face?  The ones that bring you off your pillow and to the wine cellar?

“hehehe” says she.

I catch her, though, plumbing the depths of the toilette bowl as though there is something in its depths, like the elixir of life or a new cat toy.  Now, you’d think that because she doesn’t have a problem playing in the toilette, taking a bath to wash her paws wouldn’t be a big deal.

Nay nay my friend.  A bath is a very big deal of which she wants no part.

After applying antibiotic ointment to my cuts, I find her wet ass sitting on my yoga teacher training manual.  The one with all the work I’ve done all year.  She’s cleaning herself, because the Dawn liquid soap somehow soiled the filth she’d been trying to accumulate on the paws she so ardently applies to my face between three and four in the morning.

The fun really starts when I try to go to sleep, though.  That’s when everything I do becomes most interesting.  Like when I roll over she has to try to eviscerate me.  Or when I move my hand, she thinks I don’t need all those extra fingers and she should hack them off with her small teeth.  I especially like that lingering time in which I find myself nodding off, my face tucked against the pillow pet my father gave me for my birthday (yes, my father gave me a pillow pet for my thirty-second birthday; his name is Vinton and I love him).  There I am, just aware of how cozy I am and how I’m about to get my sweet slumber on and Iola uses all her might and razor claws to apply scarification techniques to my feet that even the most aboriginal culture would shun, given the horrific nature of the branding.

That’s about how my thinking process works.  Doesn’t yours?

I wish all I had to deal with was out of hand horses.  I did some time at a stable, I was bucked by an unmanageblae Palomino, kicked at by a surly Arabian and taunted by a midget who wouldn’t let me bring him in from pasture.

It’s Kitten Mind you have to watch out for.

Kitten Mind, playful at first so you drop your guard and them BAM!  One minute you’re rubbing your woobie (get your head out of the gutter, it’s a blanket) and the next Kitten Mind masticates your optimism for the following day by reminding you you’re Sunday shift starts at three instead of four, it’s the end of the month and there is no prince charming.

Ah, Kitten Mind, it acts all cuddly like it wants to saunter down memory lane; remember that day in the park with your sisters when you were eleven?  Let’s pull that picture out and look at it, the one where Sage (now twenty-five with a child of her own) is feeding the ducks.  BAM!  In the depths of the picture trunk there are all manner of photos that make you want to cry, up to and including beauty school graduation where you’re glowing with anticipation for the future, a picture of your dead cat and a snap-shot of that man Kitten Mind clings to with its little razor claws.

Kitten Mind knew all of those were in there.  Oh, she knew.

Now is the time to take Kitten Mind by the scruff of the neck and ask it what in the hell kind of game it’s running and if it wants to go outside.  This is the moment Kitten Mind looks at you with those big orbital eyes and replies, “I was just a wild little kitten when you brought me into your house.  I don’t know how to be with a human, much less how you want me to behave.  Please, have a little patience and teach me how to love.”

It’s a regular old Disney movie around here, literally and figuratively, because Iola Boylen the target tabby and I had this very same come to Jesus meeting last week.  And in truth, I had this very same conversation with myself, too.

I let my mind torture myself.  In fact, on nights when I know I just need to have myself a really good ‘ole cry I’ll maliciously pull out those old pictures, the ones in which I look so young, before the words “Can I offer you a free wine sample?” ever came out of my mouth.  My own orbital eyes will linger on those pictures of my young mean cat, now dead and gone, and I’ll have myself a good cry about the whole affair of being alive.

And then I’ll remember how full of life little kittens are, including my own, both literally and figuratively, and I’ll realize that both Iola Boylen, target tabby at large, and my very own mind require a lot of compassion.  It’s at that point that I begin to get things done around the house – dusting and such, which though no labor of love, can carry on undisturbed.

Some time back, there was a man who came in to my restaurant.  He’s a magician.  No, really, and he’s quite good, almost on par with Chris Angel without the weave.  This guy’s name is Tony but I actually call him “The Magician”.  He drinks chilled tequilla and pulls out deck after deck of cards.  He charms my manager and enchants guests.  People just love him.  I can’t wait for the nights when he comes in.

He’s in the Navy, and one night before being deployed, he comes into the restaurant to say hello, and good-bye.  From his pocket he pulls his playing cards and asks me to write something on whatever card I choose.  I write “tiger” on the two of hearts and put it back in the deck.

He shuffles them and fans them out and asks me to find my card.  My card, of course, isn’t in there.  My card is in the window sill across the dining room.  He places the card back in the deck, which he signs and gives to me.  We’re all quite taken.  Magicians are hokey, sure, but they give us something to believe in for a moment; a reprieve from incessant salad re-fills and bottomless glasses of sweet iced tea.  Sometimes, suspension of reality is just what we need and this guy had a knack for that.

I haven’t seen him in a while.

It’s been a while for a lot of things.

On days I’m not in Fort Walton teaching a class or to an empty room, I am at work.  We all know I work in a restaurant and that working for people, serving them “a bowl of lemons” or “bread with no garlic” or my favorite, “extra butter for the rolls” is hard.

This isn’t about work, either.  This is about the fact that it’s been a while since I had any fun.  It didn’t occur to me until today that last week I was wistfully wondering what night Blazzues does salsa night.  I love salsa night.  And swing night.  If you can believe it, Dear Reader, I’m quite a good dancer.

Tonight’s shift ends with as much fanfare as the week began.  I’m hungry to leave the building and all the energy sucking life forms inhabiting it (very not yoga like of me but I don’t even care, I’m too tired to care how yoga I am at any given moment).

I go to work and come home and it’s day in and day out drudgery.  And I just need to feel like this isn’t all for nothing.  I need to believe I’m not, in fact, engaged in the rat race I’ve wanted to avoid all my life, but that I am and I’m running food in it.

My fortune is that when I get home from work my niece is waiting for me for our much coveted Christmas break spend-the-night.  She’s excited because Grandma gave her a deck of playing cards, she hopes it’s okay Grandma gave ‘em to her, she wants to show them to me.  They’re a deck Tony gave me.

Mom, aka Grandma, asks how my night was.  I can’t tell you why, exactly, I started crying, but it might have something to do with not having gone to one Christmas party, not having worn one set of sleigh bells and having neglected my holiday pedicure.  Sure, these are petty things, but combine them with the penetrating fragrance of garlic in my hair and a person starts to wonder what it’s all for.

I just need something to make me feel better.

My niece, not liking this display of displeasure from her favorite aunt, speaks up, “Hey, Meggie (for this is what she calls me) why don’t we go put stuff on your vision board and watch Michael Jackson’s dvd?”

That kid, perceptive, brilliant, loving.

So we adjourn up the stairs where she pulls that deck of cards out to show me.  I explain to her where they came from and that I’d written on one of them.

“I know, Meggie, I saw it.”  So we’re looking through this deck together.

I come upon the only card on which there is writing and it’s not my word or handwriting.

There is one word written on the three of spades.  It’s the answer to all my problems.

Grace.

Dear Reader, when you look at this image, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

I posted this image on my facebook page, which I “shared”  via a fan page for a Buddhist organization.  The caption reads, “”Peace becomes. It is fresh and new with every moment.”

Not soon after this goes on my page, someone comments that I “should be better than this” and that he is “disappointed in me”.

I go back and look at the image.

I return to the comment and scratch my head.

I figure he’s a Republican hippie hating curmudgeon who would rather me not wear  patchouli in my essential oil blends to work.  I don’t take it personally, but I’m rather confused.

Until he comments again that he can’t believe I’m posting pictures of children in war zones.

Okay, there’s something going on here of which I’m completely ignorant.

I go back and look at the photo again.

This doesn’t look like a child.  Adult hands, grimy from his work, a filthy uniform covering his bent knees, a mature hairline….

I ask, “Could this be a Vietnam soldier?”  Because the fan page I follow advocates healing  specifically for victims of violence, and the Vietnam war plays a large part in their media because of the focus on wartime trauma.  So it makes sense, to me, that this is probably a Vietnamese soldier, you know, from the Vietnam war.

Well, no, that can’t be, because my friendly antagonist states, “Soldiers haven’t worn uniforms like that since the sixties.”

What I want to say is, “You mean, since Vietnam?”  But I don’t, for several reasons.

First of all, I’ve gone back and looked at this picture several times during this ridiculous online banter began.  I am acutely aware of the fact that this guy and I are not seeing the same thing and that, in fact, he isn’t willing to see anything but what he has made his mind up about seeing.

I have a distinct impression of having an opportunity to be non-combative in a conversation that could become volatile, given that it seems both parties feel strongly about their position.  I believe in the potential for those effected by violence of all kinds to heal through mindful spiritual practice.  I believe in posting up-lifting stuff on my facebook page.  I figure that’s what it’s for; pictures of the cats and kids.  I’m not so much for the status up-date, “OMG life sucks  Can’t stand the drama.”  People don’t want to read that while they’re unwinding after a night at the office (or day, if you don’t work in a restaurant).

This guy obviously believes in protecting children from being party to war propaganda and the subjugation of innocence by photogs posing babies with machine guns.  In fact, I think it’s commendable that he feels strongly about protecting children from such things and for speaking out when he feels a child is being subjugated, for political purposes or otherwise.

I don’t know how this guy feels about Buddhist philosophy.  I’m sure he’s not aware of my intimate understanding of the necessity to “heal the world” as Michael Jackson would say.  I’m not going for world peace here, people, but peace in my own mind that might beget peace in my own house, possibly extending to one or two people at the yoga center and restaurant.  Small victories, I’ll let the Swamis and Monks swing the hatchet on a grand scale, at least until I start the 500 hour yoga teacher training program.  (For those of you who just sucked air, stop it, I’m just injecting a little levity into the conversation).

This lively conversation gives meaning to a text I’ve read all year.  Sure, I may intellectually understand The Yoga Sutras, but I haven’t known how to apply them.

I recall a thread, “Misconception occurs when knowledge of something is not based upon its true form.”  Sri Swami Satchidananda elaborates in his translation, In the twilight you see a coiled rope and mistake it for a snake.  You get frightened.  There is no snake there in reality; there is a false understanding.  But still it created terror in your mind.  It is not only valid knowledge that creates thought waves, but erroneous impressions also.*

Krishnamacharya’s translation of the same text explains that…It is due to our inability to understand in-depth what we see, often as a result of past experiences and conditioning…The aim of yoga practice is to recognize and control the causes of misapprehension.**

Dear Reader, I’m not sure if ya’ll know this or not, but the whole purpose of yoga practice, meditation and study, on a fundamental level, is to first get your mind to quit driving you crazy.  That’s sort of why I’m so into it.  If you can’t get your mind to quit driving you crazy, how in the hell are you supposed to be able to control anything else in your life?

This has been an invaluable experience, because it’s given me a chance to apply theory to practice.  This guy and I aren’t seeing the same thing with the same perceiving mind.

Delving a little deeper in this, we can now turn to chapter two of The Yoga Sutras.  Krishnamacharya’s translation states, Misapprehension leads to errors in comprehension of the character, origin and effects of the objects perceived.**

What is interesting is that misapprehension is considered to be an obstacle on the path of yoga.  That’s right folks, jumping to conclusions, in some form or another, is going to get you down, dog.

So I have to ask myself a few questions.  Have I ever perceived someone I am serving at work to be a mean, nasty person when in reality their father is in the hospital and grandma fell and broke her hip, both of whom are in adjoining hospital rooms.  But they don’t get along.  And the mean nasty hateful person I’m serving at work hasn’t eaten a real meal in three days, only visitors’ hospital food and cigarettes, and now they’ve come out to receive nourishment from unlimited salad.

I don’t know what’s going on in their life.  I just know what I perceive, and I am wrong.  This person might donate to charity, pack street meals and be a foster parent to eleven bad children under the age of five.  Let’s say I react to my misapprehension.  The hour they have stolen for themselves is ruined because their server is an asshole, because the server jumped to some conclusions because, possibly, the server is trying to make rent at the eleventh hour and is burned out from college finals and just broke up with her boyfriend.

See how this can get out of hand?

I thought I understood, but I really don’t, not completely.  But I saw in black and white how two people, both well intended, can see two drastically different things and react from that perspective.

You know what, Readers?  I don’t know a thing about that photograph.  I have researched it, and the most I can come up with is that the woman who put it on the page assures both the gentleman with whom I had the exchange and me that this is a photo of an adult, though adulthood was relative during the Vietnam era (weren’t there seventeen year old Americans fighting in the jungle) but this is not a baby someone put in fatigues and had pose for a propaganda shot.

No one affiliated with this source of media has denied it being a form of propaganda, though.  It is propaganda, but as one woman aptly stated, any image coming out of a wartime is propaganda for or against war, for or against peace.

My brother-in-law was shot on the roof of a building in Afghanistan.  There was a reporter with he and his team, and as he fell against a wall with his arm blown open the photographer took a photo.  I’ve made every effort to find the archived photo but have failed, so I’ll leave my Readers with this -

When a sniper’s bullet passed through Mo Sheik’s bicep, he fell against a low wall on the rooftop on which he and his men were posted.  His sandy uniform is splattered with blood, his black eyebrows descend over his eyes, his face a snarling contortion at the camera.

At first, he looks possessed of some great force, as though war has saturated his blood and marrow and is only expressing itself on his face in his rage against being shot.  There are boots and legs splayed around him, as all his men are laying low across the desert rooftop.  There is chaos in the frame of the shot, Mo Sheik maddened by the surrounding hell.  It is a chilling vision.  My bother-in-law looks demonic and wild.

What you might not perceive in the photo is that the moment the picture is snapped he is trying to discover if his men are alright.  It’s not an image that evokes thoughts of a protective demeanor, but that’s what is happening; he’s furiously concerned for those with whom he serves.  You’d never know it by just looking at the picture.  Funny how the mind works, isn’t it?

We can live one emotion after another.  We can live one reaction to the next.  We can interrupt the incessant flow of thoughts long enough to find out what’s really going on – to see the big picture.

* The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda Chapter 1 v. 8

** The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V Desikachar, Yoga Sutra adaptation by his father, Krishnamacharya Chapter 1 v. 8 and Chapter 2 v. 5

This last teacher training weekend taught me…

1. That much like Dracula, I must sleep on my own dirt.  Class begins at eight in the morning on Sunday.  My Dear Friends, I bet you all know by now that mornings are a struggle for me.  Given that it’s a 45 minute commute and I stayed later for dinner with the teacher trainer girls (so much fun!) I decided to crash in my friend’s “Goddess” guest room.  There is, of course, a tapestry of Shakti hanging on the wall in there.  It was lovely.

This friend is also an awesome hostess.  When she went to bed I pulled out my journal and Sookie Stackhouse book, but what I ended up doing for twenty minutes is sitting on the edge of her guest bed and smelling each and every one of her perfume bottles.  Three or four times.  I love perfume.  And also I didn’t really know what to do with myself.  I finally fall asleep and rest well until said friend wakes me up and makes me French toast.  She would be the best boyfriend – ever – if she were a dude.

But still, I’m sort of like Dracula and require my own dirt on which to sleep.

2. That one cup of coffee in the morning isn’t enough to sustain me for an entire day.  Because I had a creeping headache start around ten Sunday morning.  And it continued to creep around my cranium until I wrangle a cup to-go on my way home around three.  It’s not often that I go that long without coffee, but the times in which I’ve refrained from caffeine I have boasted mind splitting migraines the likes of which I encountered today.  As in, I had to lay down during yoga, and I don’t think I got back up until it was time to leave.

I accept with no little bitterness this addiction.  I’m off the aspartame and soda, heaven knows that was trying (I love me some Diet Coke) but have no intention to lay off the coffee.  My dad put it in my bottle when I was little.  I’m not going against that habit until I certify at the 700 hour yoga teacher certification.  Then, maybe, I’ll be prepared to take it on.  That, and levitation.

3. That I have more support for my writing than I could have imagined and that – also – I choke the shit out of my writing most of the time with my God given neurosis.  Which is why I’m posting on Monday.  Not because I’m going back to posting on Mondays rather than Fridays as I said a couple of weeks ago, but because I’m just gonna fire with both barrels when I feel inclined.  Lucky for you, my Readers, I feel inclined right now.

4. That I dream profound things when I am out of my comfort zone.

5. I have a telepathic link with my cats and am acutely aware of when they think of me, wonder when in the hell I’m coming home and if they’re ever gonna eat again.  I also felt their wash of relief when I arrived home this afternoon offering kitty chow.  They were dismayed at not having access to the canned wet food which is a bitch to open without opposable thumbs, but I assure my audience that the kitties had an abundance of dry food in my absence.

6. I am sensitive to those around me and an influx of “off” energy can throw me out of balance for a short time.  Combine this with #1 up there and it takes a salt bath and my cat sneezing on my three times to equillibriate my chakras.

7. I need to chill out, not be as hard on myself regarding writing goals, complex yoga pose goals (When oh when can I wrangle my body into that side-flying crane I saw on television?) and my ability to spin completely out of control (in my mind) when I am tired, aggravated or insecure.

That’s right, dear Reader, I said it,  Insecure.

It happens to the best of us, and things are changing around here – again – at Icy Exhale.  I’m going to be saying a lot more, more often, because putting boundaries around something as liberating as writing, even a self-hosted little blog like mine, only makes it easier to put boundaries around other things in life.  The last thing I need is a bound up yoga practice, inhibited writing techniques or a restrained heart.

8. There’s nothing wrong with a self-hosted little blog like mine, because much like home, it’s mine, because I have crafted it to reflect me and to find comfort in its existence.  Attachment might not be a sign of emotional growth, but gratitude sure as hell is.

Next time, read what I learned from working in a corporate restaurant for five and a half years.  Stay tuned.

They order a bottle of Moscato, the wine world’s answer to people who don’t really drink wine but want to have something alcoholic in their wine glass anyway.  I go to the bar to retrieve the bottle of Moscato and an ice bucket in which to deposit their chilled vintage.  When I get to the table, the ice bucket unceremoniously drops to the floor spilling ice and water between three sections.

Oh my bug!

That’s never happened to me in all my serving career.

Cara, our resident hostess who takes the most shit and lives to help another day (have I thanked you today, Cara, for your patience?) comes to the rescue with a dust pan and industrial broom.  She arrives out of nowhere like an angel from the mists so I can go get a new wine bucket.  Fortunately, the bottle remains safe and intact on the table.

I apologize profusely to the ladies.  Usually, when I goof, drop a plate of lemons (which has, in fact, happened in my serving career) or some other mishap happens at the table, the guests are very kind about it if not outright friendly from there on out, given we have shared an “event”, like we survived a hostage crisis or something.  This makes us friendly.  But not these ladies.

Once they have had their fill of salad I go over to clear their plates.  The youngest old one says, “That was a pitiful salad.  There were only three olives, two tomatoes…”

The oldest old one interjects, “And one measly onion.”

This is the first I’m hearing about this.  I’ve been by the table several times.  Dear Reader, do you know how long it would have taken me to make them another salad, personally, with everything they wanted?  About one point five seconds.  The salad lady, Mike, made the previous salad.  The corporate jackals have been on employees about cost, ergo, a salad for three people gets three olives, two tomatoes and one onion.  Don’t be mad at me or Mike, the salad lady.  But with considerable complaints, I can go back there and amp up the salad.

But no.  They complain.  To me.  To the manager.  And then won’t let us fix it.

Okay.

While these ladies are no doubt besmirching my serving techniques and the goblins of corporate dining for infringing on their enjoyment of overpriced iceberg lettuce and a few croutons, a family sits in the booth directly behind the old ones.  I think these people are what one might refer to as a nuclear family; there is mom and dad, a toddler girl and Ben who is six but will be seven on Sunday.  I know this because he gave me his address with his finger-pointing in the air like a scientist figuring a mighty equation.  Then he invited me to his party.  I told him the only reason I can’t come is because I will be out-of-town, but I’ll think of him.  This pleases Ben.

I get them drinks, pouring uninvited samples of wine for the slightly overstimulated parents, given that Ben seems to be enjoying a sugar high.  I get their orders in and go back and make their salad myself.  While this nuclear family seems to be enjoying their dining experience and the old ones are getting more sour (except for the white-haired goddess who is pleased by everything except for the minimal show of tomatoes) I am working on a party of fourteen lovely people with my pregnant co-worker.

Maybe I get flustered with the old ones.  Maybe the party distracts me at exactly the wrong moment.  Maybe, just maybe, I’m not paying enough attention.  Because I ring in the wrong thing for the nuclear family’s dad.  Poor guy just wanted a lasagna but ends up with the chicken Marsala.  Not wanting to ruin two sets of guests’ evenings, I run to the kitchen and fly out with a quick-to-prepare lasagna (had he wanted a chicken alfredo pizza we’d both still be there waiting – through no fault of my kitchen staff I assure you – chicken alfredo pizzas just take forever to cook).

The correct entrée lands on the table in moments.  In an effort to show how contrite I am over the whole thing, I bring Ben an extra side of grapes.  He ate all of his first serving and was so excited about moving on to his cheese pizza and birthday party this Sunday that I thought it would be fun to see if this kid could possibly glow anymore.  He did, in fact, glow a little more when he got his second helping of grapes.

Both parties leave at the same time; the nuclear family pays their fifty some odd dollar bill and takes their extra mints with them.  I remind Ben I’ll be thinking of him on his birthday and thank him for the invitation.  The old ones leave, too, after closing their seventy-eight dollar check.  I finished whatever requirements the large party has and then go pick up the black books.

The credit card slips with my tip on them are in those black books.

The nuclear family tucked thirty dollars in the book with the credit card receipt.

You read that correctly.  $30.  Thank you nuclear family.

The old ones did not leave me a tip at all.

You read that correctly.  $0.

Now think about this for a second.  The Universe (or capital Whatever/Whomever to which you defer) put these two groups of people literally back to back.  Both sets of guests had very good service with a few hiccups I tried to make up for.  If the old ones had come in first and left first, getting a no tip on almost eighty dollars worth of food stings, given that I tip bussers and bartenders based on my sales.  This little glitch might have thrown my chi way off.

If the nuclear family had come and gone before the old ones, I would have still appreciated the tip (certainly) but my perspective wouldn’t have still been in stark relief to the reality that we receive everything we need and the Universe really does look out for us.  If you say in a timid little whisper, “I believe in you, Universe Divine…” then the Universe Divine will do all manner of miracles to affirm your faith for you, like a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you feel lonely and desolate and deposited on this Earth pointlessly, then the Universe won’t make a move to confirm or deny the belief.

I don’t know the ends and outs of Diving intervention, Universal grace or miraculous acts of God.  I do know that the moment you open yourself to the possibility of Divine intervention, Universal grace and miraculous acts of God, it’s uncanny the way this faith starts to prove itself.  I just don’t think it’s an accident that these two sets of people literally leave at the exact moment; the nuclear family’s tip was more than twenty-percent of both tables’ checks.

Dear Reader, when you feel as though you are being held down or moved back, consider in what ways, in the very same moment, you are being up-lifted and supported.  And then get back with me, I just love that stuff.

There are little solutions to big problems.  These little solutions empower us.  For my dear subscribers, the reason I landed in your inbox on Friday instead of Monday is the response to my perceived problem of feeling stagnant.  For those of you who stumbled upon this post, I usually post a new blog on Sunday after mid-night.  Yes, I’m that OCD about it.  My Readers get a spanky new blog every Monday morning.

But not this week.

Because from now on I’m posting new blogs on Friday, or rather, Thursday after mid-night.

There’s this very nice lady from New Jersey named Maa Jaya Sat Bhagavati.  She runs an interfaith ashram in Kashi, Florida.  I learned about her through Swami Jaya Devi (also a very nice lady from New Jersey) who visited Dragonfly Yoga Studies last August.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep and I can’t seem to get any propulsion in my life at three o’clock in the morning (big surprise I can’t get clouds to break in the middle of the night) I nose around for inspiration.  On one such night, I discover Maa Jaya’s blog.

One of her posts made an impression on me weeks after I read it.  I am in a slump, slumped over some piece of writing or another in the middle of the night, and I think, something has got to give.

Sometimes little changes lead to big changes.  Sometimes moving a little gets things to moving in a new direction that more closely reflects the things for which we’re going.  And Maa Jaya’s writing filtered through my mind’s fog and haze and brought space to what at once felt like a holding pattern.  She deals particularly with procrastination, but given how I associated the very reasonable advice, I took it to apply to my present predicament of stagnation.

Do three things differently this week.

Change one pattern of behavior, a simple one, an easy to alter activity, and the air in the room will stir.  I think it just helps to rotate perspective, letting us see an opportunity where in one moment there seemed only to be closed doors.

This is one of the things I changed this week.  It’s simple.  Instead of ending my work week (I work Thursday – Sunday in a restaurant) by coming home and slumping over a computer into the wee hours of the night (regardless of how this may come across, dear Reader, please understand this is one of my favorite things to do) I will begin my work week with writing something up-lifting.  My first night back to work will conclude with a new blog post, reinvigorating my creativity for the weekend’s work.

And now, on Sunday night when I am finished with my work week, I can do a little yoga, read a little Sookie Stackhouse, do my cat’s hair, polish my toe nails, and respond to comments on a blog post that has had several days to simmer.

I hope you enjoy my new writing schedule, because now I have the opportunity to wish you all a wonderful weekend.  Enjoy yourselves out there, and be sweet.

To visit Maa Jaya Sat Bhagavati’s blog – http://blog.kashiashram.org/2011/10/31/week/